THE 24 HR NEWS CYCLE HAS KILLED THE NEWS

THE 24 HR NEWS CYCLE HAS KILLED THE NEWS

Matt HealeyFriday,4 January 2013

The Snap:

People talk about how the effect the 24 he news cycle has had on politicians. The need to react to the news cycle has caused them to have to be always on and any gaff is instantly broadcast to the world. Whether this is a problem or not depends on if the gaff is made by someone in your party. However, there is another potential problem: the dumbing down of the news.

The Download:

There is not enough happening to fill 24 hours of news. This results in the media locking in on a single story and beating it to death. The constant focus on every little development. For example, CNN was so focused on the fiscal cliff, that they replayed VP Biden walking out through the lobby of the senate several times. Mind you, he did not say anything, he just walked by the cameras. This, counts as news. Really? Biden was at the senate negotiating with other Democrats but the need to fill air time mandated the replaying of his walk. This is absurd.

But it goes deeper than this. The inanity causes the networks to do stories on crap. During the reporting CNN also did a story on an 80+ yr old who is sending the government deposits on recycled cans. This is news? He has sent in $3,000+ over the past 3 years. So let’s assume that he ha sent in 1,000 cans per year. The federal debt is $16,000,000,000,000. His contribution has resulted in a reduction of 6.25×10^-11 percent. WOW, that really merits time on CNN! if there were only 16,000,000,000 more people like him in the US. Except the total US population is only 300,000,000+ and the world population is 6,000,000,000+. What was the point of this other than to fill space? How have we gotten to the point that this is news?

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